Facebook has afforded us the wonderful privilege of knowing more about our friends than we ever really wanted to. "I just blew my nose. Thought you all should know." "Status: mad at everybody."
Best of all, we can share our selfies. Pictures of me. Taken by me. Because it's all about me, right?
Actually, no. At least it's not supposed to be.
One TV documentary said, "There's an epidemic of loneliness today." It's true. Even in a world that, in one way, is more connected than ever. Superficially. But strangely lacking in the kind of deep human connection that satisfies our love-starved hearts.
Life was never meant to be a selfie existence. Where it's all about how I look...what I'm doing...what I'm feeling...what I want to talk about...what I need. The problem is that a world that's only as big as me is a world that's too small to live in. Status: lonely.
Years ago a young man wrote to Mother Teresa with a pretty compelling question. This woman who had buried her life in the needs of the most broken in Calcutta's slums was clearly the one who would know the answer. "What can I do to have a significant life like you have?"
Mother Teresa's postcard reply was only four words: "Find your own Calcutta." Or, "Find some people who need you - and be there for them."
You don't have to go to Calcutta to find them. They're in the local senior citizens' facility. The hospital. Or they may be kids struggling in school who could flourish - if someone took time to tutor them. "Calcutta" may be those homeless people...or those new arrivals trying to learn English...or the unemployed or medically sidelined people down the block.
In fact, you may not have to look any farther than the people you work with or "play" with or go to school with. On any given day, someone in your world needs a smile, a hug, a compliment, a word of encouragement, a listening ear, a helping hand - or just to be noticed and included. It's a matter of recalibrating your radar to see the people for whom you could make a difference.
On my good days, I wake up and ask the "make a difference" question: "Who needs me today?"
It's deciding to be a giver today instead of a taker. But self-sacrifice is not without personal benefit. Because the fastest way to get out of your pit is to pull someone else out of theirs. And the best antidote for being lonely is to be there for someone else.
So you turn your camera lens the other way. To make life a "you-ie" instead of a selfie. Where the other person is the picture.
Where your life mission is simple: make each person feel like they matter.
Years ago, when I occasionally spoke for New York Giants chapels, I had the privilege of meeting their defensive end, George Martin. A great football player, yes - Super Bowl ring and all. But an even greater man. Because he always made other people the big deal instead of himself.
He spoke one year for our local high school football team. George had just been named the NFL's Man of the Year for his work with sick and dying children - along with numerous other charitable causes. It was not the only award he received for "finding his own Calcutta."
He told our players, "You need to know the real reason I'm doing these things that people give me awards for. I'm just copying my hero. And my hero is Jesus Christ." He went on to explain how Jesus forgot about Himself to give us a chance to go to heaven someday. To have a relationship with the God whose love we were made for.
For that to happen, the wall between us and God had to come down. It's a wall I suspect many of us know is there without anyone telling us. And it could only come down if the penalty for us running our own life was paid. And it's a death penalty. As the Bible says, "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23).
I'm dead meat if that Bible verse ends there. Thank God, it doesn't. It goes on to say, "But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Living forever instead of punishment forever. Heaven instead of hell.
Because "the Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). I have hope because of the greatest act of love in human history. God's one and only Son hanging on a cross for me. Abandoning all self-interest. To rescue me.
That love has captured my heart. And so filled me with His love that I don't need to be all about me anymore. I can actually live for others. Making them feel safe and cared for. As He has done for me.
He has blown the walls off my "selfie" world.
